World Class Training in Maritime Courses for Nigerian Cadets

17/08/2012

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has announced that over 2,000 Nigerians are going to benefit under the September round of its National Seafarer Development Programme (NSDP).

The Director General of NIMASA, Patrick Akpobolokemi, explained that by September 2012 the cadets will start travelling to different parts of the world to acquire training in different maritime courses.

The NIMASA boss also hinted that a new maritime university will be commencing operations any moment from now. The new maritime university has been approved by the government. Even though Akpobolokemi refused to give the name of the university, he explained that preliminary works on the university are going on and that NIMASA is trying to fast-track the entire process in order to close up the learning gap in the maritime industry.

“We have four institutes that we have established in existing Nigerian universities that offer courses relating to the maritime environment and we are fully sponsoring this to close the knowledge gap”.

“While doing this we are not stopping; this year we are going to send about 2,000 Nigerians abroad and by September they will start going to different parts of the world to participate in courses such as marine engineering and so on”.

“We know it is costing us a great deal, but we cannot wait. We will keep doing this until our academies are fully established. We will then stop sending people outside the country in order to reserve foreign exchange”.

According to the NIMASA Director General, the only academy Nigeria has (Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron) offers little opportunity in terms of sea time for cadets because many Nigerians are not involved in ocean-going activities.

At present GlobalMET does not have a member in Nigeria and will be soliciting membership by the new university.